102-year-old’s long wait to vote — big joke to Fox News

Even dour House Speaker John Boehner rose to applaud, during Tuesday night’s State of the Union speech, when President Obama saluted a 102-year-old Florida woman named Desiline Victor who made two trips and waited three hours to vote.

The Florida Legislature had reduced the number of early voting days in the Sunshine State from 14 to 8, and eliminated the popular Sunday-before-election-day vote. The result were long lines, which discouraged an estimated 201,000 people from voting.

But the plight of Desiline Victor was treated as a joke Thursday on the Fox News program “Kilmeade & Friends,” in line with Fox’s downplaying of impediments thrown in the way of voting by Republican legislatures. The result was a display of stupidity and obtuseness, even by Fox’s standards.

“How long was she in line?” asked co-host Bill Hemmer.

“What’s the big deal? She was happy. She waited in line. She was happy she voted. This is such a non-issue: Ridiculous,” said co-host Martha McCallum.

“They held her up as a victim. What was she a victim of? Rashes on the bottom of her feet?” asked Hemmer.

Curiously, after signing legislation to reduce early voting, Florida’s Republican Gov. Rick Scott has reversed himself and advocated more early voting days. Scott is facing a challenge by Ex-Gov. (and ex-Republican) Charlie Crist, who is making an issue of long lines and hours-long waits to vote in the Sunshine State.

Perhaps, if 81-year-old Fox overlord Rupert Murdoch had to wait hours in a Florida voting line, the network’s perspective would change.